Shifting Gold
by Nautical Acronym
Summary: "All these clever humans were still being with every bit of themselves and on quite nights when the rain was pouring he would think about her out there somewhere; living, growing, being. It made him feel like his circuits were singing..."
1. Shifting Gold

_**Shifting Gold**_

It was the coldest he had ever been. Space was a cruelty he had born for five years and though time passed, lives changed and that coldness became an insubstantial memory he could still feel it shiver through his frame when he thought about it too long or the memory itself seemed far too close.

Coming back to Earth wasn't something he had thought could happen; say, three years ago when he was circling it from thousands of miles up, but life, he decided, had a way of surprising you.

He had returned to Earth by the simple certainty of physics. At first he had been too far away for the Earth's gravity to really pull him in, but after so many course alterations (all of which were instigated by rocks of unfair proportions) he found himself spinning closer and closer.

Wheatley never felt that he was very lucky. Some might say that he was uncommonly lucky; the Earth is, after all, composed mostly of water and the odds of landing in the right place in one piece were decidedly against him. But that was the problem, wasn't it? Fate, it seemed, decided to write its own small print: It would return him to Earth, just not anywhere near Aperture. Not even close. Not the right place _at all_.

On a landing strip just outside of Darwin he hit the ground hard.

Life had been an exhilarating journey after that. He was no longer a core limited to the confines of Aperture and its management rails, but an android with two legs. There was a body transfer, learning to walk, the wonders of the outside world and his shock and amazement that the human race wasn't just alive- it was thriving. They had moved beyond the confines of the solar system and were still building and inventing. All these clever humans were still being with every bit of themselves and on quite nights when the rain was pouring he would think about her out there somewhere; living, growing, _being_. It made him feel like his circuits were singing even though there was a hard something at the center of it all; heavy and unsatisfying. After all, he didn't really know if GLaDOS had ever let her go and on some of those rainy nights he imagined himself bravely coming to her rescue (because in his daydreams he was always brave) and GLaDOS being so amazed to see him and so taken aback that she could do nothing to prevent his quick and competent hacking. Her firewalls would fall and his quick hands would shut Her down (and clever, he was always clever). Then _she_ would be there; pale and luminous and in his head she had a voice that would cry in delight when she saw him, "Wheatley!" she would say, "Oh Wheatley! You came back for me! You saved me!" and they would ride the lift straight to the sky. In his less lucid visions (the ones that occurred just on the verge of his sleep mode) he would take her hand in his own. It was always warm as sunlight.

He worked for a living, like any other man or machine of the time and saved it as well as he could. Though bad decisions were in his nature it appeared that wasn't very different from any other human. He did his best and he got by.

When the day finally came he boarded a flight to the states with a mantra beating steady in his head: _I have to find her_. For what purpose exactly he couldn't rightly define. To apologize, yes; to see her and confirm that she was real and whole. But there was something else there too: an anxiety burrowing somewhere at the back of his head that persisted simply because he didn't _know_. He didn't know what had happened to her or if she ever could forgive him.

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><p>Aperture was difficult to find. Records had been lost, cities had been built. Things like Aperture (old and defunct according to modern standards) were remnants of a past so far back that they hardly seemed to matter. He did eventually find it and he searched every city and town in the surrounding area.<p>

"Eight years ago" he would say, "black hair, light eyes. She would have been wearing a jumpsuit. Orange." but no one knew, even in the closest and smallest towns where someone would have noticed a stranger there were only blank stares and apologies. The police hadn't any records. He didn't even know her name; it was a painful realization when it came.

Filled with despair he eventually went to the field; his artificial heart hammering in ways it wasn't designed to as he waded through the golden stalks. He wielded a GPS which he wasn't very good at using, a flashlight because he no longer had one installed and an assortment of other things which he thought might come in handy should Aperture's gaping maw rise up to swallow him whole.

After a few hours in the sun he finally spotted something in the distance. A shed sat tall against the wheat and he knew, without a doubt, that it was the entrance to Aperture. It caused a brief shudder to think of going anywhere near it, but near it he went. He approached it from the back and circled it with wariness and a wide birth. He didn't know what he was looking for, but he came to see it anyways- to confirm in his mind that he was in the right place.

As he circled it there came a resounding crack from somewhere just below his foot. He cautiously lifted it to notice an odd scattering of debris, the wheat stocks growing beneath and over the stuff obscuring their shapes. He gently reached down to push away the scrub and there was no mistaking the once white (now dirty and weathered) shape of the long-fall boots and the dull orange fabric still tucked securely into them. A cracked sliver of bone disappeared amongst the young sprouts of the undergrowth.

He stumbled back.

A dull and sun damaged cube hidden until now by stalks of swaying wheat was all that lay between the boots and the door. It was a mere ten paces; an inexplicable distance.

He wept (a function he had never known existed) and he contemplated the obscenities of life. The fanciful visions he had created of her happy and free crumbled to dust; bitter in his mouth. His shattered illusions were now nothing but a mockery. They laughed at him from somewhere he couldn't reach as he sat amongst the stalks right next to her eight years too late.

Here in the blazing sun and shifting gold he was cold; the coldest he had ever been.

~END~

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><p>AN: Thank you for reading my fic! I plan on doing a reading of it as a bit of practice. If you guys are interested then the file will most likely be posted on my Tumblr. You can find it by googling, "NauticalAcronym Tumblr". It may not be up for a bit, but it is a plan in the works.<br>I hope that you guys review and let me know how you felt about this (very) short story. I myself don't have a clear view on how I feel about it so some feedback would be greatly appreciated. If there are any questions please feel free to fire them my way.  
>Have a good one!<p> 


	2. Something Deer

**AN**: I decided to create another chapter to this story, but I will warn you all that it is very short. Like most of my stuff lately I wrote this at about 3AM, so I'm sorry if there are any glaring mistakes I didn't notice.

I think a lot about Shifting Gold because I like stories that match up more closely with reality then with the norms of story telling. Wheatley never gets to say he's sorry- he's too late and that hits something really bang on for me. Did it with you? If you guys have something to say about the first chapter or with this one please let me know by leaving a review or PMing me. I like talking about stuff. :)

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><p><strong>Something Deer<strong>

She staggered in the wheat like a wounded animal, eyes wide and blind. Gold-on-gold was everywhere; the sky: so blue like an optics swinging light and _she_ was…

_Desperate to believe we were something._

Her veins constricted in the fresh air. She wasn't accustomed to unfiltered oxygen; not adapted to a life without adrenal vapour and her legs were weak; suddenly useless.

Her stomach flipped and she fell to her knees vomiting in the brush.

_Shock_, she though, _just shock_ and maybe a concussion. Twenty hours and so many impossibilities behind her; so much terror and fear in so little time; his four part plan that was actually five; It was bound to damage a person.

She crawled forward in the stalks dizzy and sweat-shaky; her limbs feebly pulling her forward towards a goal she hadn't set yet. Her fingers laced into the strands of wheat, grabbing them with- _Grab me! Grab me! Grab me!_- Good, old, human grip.

_Wheatley._

She vomited again.

She had known from the moment that he knocked her down the lift that things weren't going to be the same and even though _She_ had been keen on killing Wheatley Chell had held out hope that when she got back to the testing tracks he would be, at the very least, apologetic for the incident.

Her limbs faltered with a spasm, but she pushed forward ignoring the pain.

He wasn't. He wasn't sorry at all and she was a fool to have thought that Aperture technology was capable of anything more than the absolute worst. He was selfish and arrogant, egotistical and cruel. She hated him; by God she _hated_ him- for stealing away everything she wanted at the very last second, for making promises he didn't keep, for making her _test_, for god's sakes _the tests_. And now for this.

She was dying.

What cruel machines those humans had made. GLaDOS had, in the guise of practicality and twisted kindness, let her go, but_ She_ must have known; known that something was very wrong and sought to have the final laugh. And as for Wheatley? The cruelest part of him was that, at one time, she had _liked_ him. Sweet, ineffectual Wheatley who was the only human-like thing in the facility; the only thing that actively engaged her, made her smile and had, in the dark of a frightening situation told her stories he thought she might like.

_Thud_

The softest tremor sent her rigid and alert. She tensed and scanned the area, looking out at the vastness of the world.

_Thud_

She swivelled.

A deer stood alarmingly near, a buck with strong, large antlers. It was stiff as well and with its eyes wide; wary of the thing lying low amongst the wheat.

It was so close she could touch it. The sunlight was streaking across its back. It's hair caught the light and diffused it in an aura of astounding white. Its muscles were strong- a sturdy creature breathing in and out. It was unlike anything she could ever recall and, caught in the moment, she reached out to it; unthinking fingers stretching towards its captivating life.

The deer startled and her fingers never reached. It galloped away into the distance, far beyond her sight.

_Thud_

She went against the ground. She was cold, so terribly cold.

Her vision was getting dim and the cold was creeping closer, coming at her like wolves in the dark. It wasn't welcome, it wasn't calm. Her limbs were shaking against the earth, bones and teeth rattling loud.

The most unlikely of things formed inside her head: Wheatley. She imagined him somewhere in space and spinning; he was lost and cold amongst the stars. The thought made her sad, though she would never understand exactly why. The thought, after all, went just as quickly as she did; spinning into nothing under the optic-blue of the endless sky.


End file.
